


Tangible/Intangible

by citrinesunset



Category: Inception (2010), White Collar
Genre: Background Neal/Kate, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 03:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5651446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrinesunset/pseuds/citrinesunset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal met Eames at a poker game where they were both cheating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tangible/Intangible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sheenianni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheenianni/gifts).



> Written for Sheenianni for Fandom Stocking.

The poker game had a ten thousand dollar buy-in. Some of the biggest gamblers in Europe were there. Kate had discouraged him, but he counted on making it up to her with the winnings.

But after a few hours, when there were only three of them left at the table, Neal realized he wasn't the only one cheating.

"Raise me another fifteen," the man across from him said, slurring his words in a British accent. He'd had a rum and coke glued to his hand all night, but it was obvious to Neal that he wasn't actually drunk.

Neal had assumed for a while that the man was just bluffing, but then he'd caught the swift movement of the card he pulled from his sleeve.

If Kate were there, Neal knew she'd tell him to walk away. He'd lose thirty grand, but he could afford to.

But Neal hated to lose.

The man was watching him, and something in his eyes told Neal that he knew he was in on the secret, too.

"I'm in," Neal said.

Neither of them could out the other. Not without exposing his own cheating.

An hour later, Neal was walking down the streets of Berlin in the direction of his hotel, trying to decide what he'd tell Kate. Eighty thousand wasn't the end of the world, but it was enough to worry her. The last thing Neal wanted was recriminations. He wanted a sympathetic ear he could tell about thief who'd out-cheated him.

He heard footsteps behind him, getting closer. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the man from the game.

"I'm sorry about your money."

Neal raised his eyebrows. "Why? You won it."

He shrugged. "I could tell you weren't planning on losing."

"Neither were you. Obviously. You're lucky they didn't catch you cheating. You were good, but you lack finesse."

"Now, don't be a sore loser. I was going to offer to buy you a drink to make this all up to you. I always welcome the chance to meet another man of my trade, and you don't seem like the type who's going to shoot me to get his money back."

Despite his annoyance, Neal couldn't deny that he was interested in getting to know this man, as well.

"All right. I have time for a couple drinks. I'm Nick Halden, by the way."

"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Eames."

 

* * *

 

It wasn't true that there was no honor among thieves. It depended entirely on the company one kept. There were perks to being social and maintaining good relationships. The thing Neal had never realized about crime was how lonely it could be. It was hard not to talk about his accomplishments. If he didn't have Kate, he didn't know what he would do.

He spent the rest of the night talking to Eames, and strolled back to the hotel as the sky was starting to get light. He climbed into bed with Kate and didn't get up until early afternoon, when she woke him to tell him a note had been delivered for him.

Eames was inviting them to join him at a museum. Neal didn't stop long to think about how Eames had figured out where he was staying.

The next day, it was lunch at a nearby café. The day after, it was a walk through the more historic streets of Berlin. It was then, while Kate was out of earshot, that Eames invited Neal to come by his apartment later.

An apartment implied that Eames intended to stay in Berlin for a while, but one look at the place told Neal that it would not be an extended stay. Eames was staying in a small, rundown place that smelled slightly moldy. There were suitcases by the bed and most of the living space was taken up by art supplies.

While Eames made them some coffee, Neal studied the painting that was on an easel in the middle of the room. It was a forgery of a Van Gogh, still in progress. Neal observed with some relief that the forgery, though good, was not up to his own caliber.

"Kate would love this place," Neal said, looking around. "She'd find it romantic."

"I hope you weren't sorry to leave her behind. But I want to learn more about your work."

"Why, you have a job or something?"

The briefcase looked like something out of a spy movie, and Neal’s imagination ran wild as he started thinking about what might be inside. Fake IDs? Cash?

But when Eames opened the case, Neal saw that the inside was the workings of a machine.

“You know what this is?” Eames asked.

“A PASIV. It’s a type of shared virtual reality technology developed by the military,” Neal replied, though he’d never actually seen one in person before.

“How familiar are you with extraction?”

“I’ve heard about it. I’ve never seen it done.”

“If you do it right, no one ever knows you did it. You ever use one of these before?”

“I can’t say I’ve had the opportunity.”

“Would you like to give it a spin?”

He knew the technology worked in conjunction with a drug, and he could hear Mozzie in his head, yelling at him for even considering letting a near stranger inject him with something. Even Kate would have disapproved, had she been there.

But the curiosity was too much to deny.

Eames had him lie on the sofa. He made quick, clean work of inserting the IV line that connected Neal to the machine.

Only when he started to feel the tug of unconsciousness did Neal start to question his decision. But the sedative worked fast. The last thing he saw was Eames slumped in the chair across from him.

 

* * *

 

There was nothing like being back in New York. Neal was hesitant to call any city his favorite, but New York was home.

He was in Central Park waiting for…Mozzie. Moz was the only person who ever wanted to meet him here.

But strangely, Neal couldn’t remember getting a message. His memory never failed him like that, and panic started to rise as he tried to work it out.

A tall, thin man with graying hair sat beside him.

“Well?” the man asked. “What do you think? Have you figured it out yet?”

“Have we met?” Neal asked. There was something familiar about the man, but he couldn’t place him.

And then, like a flash, the man sitting next to him wasn’t a stranger anymore. He was Eames.

“This is a dream?” Neal asked.

“You catch on fast.”

Neal didn’t feel like he’d caught on quickly at all, and that unnerved him. Eames must have sensed his displeasure.

“How did you do that? Disguise yourself?”

Eames grinned, betraying that he’d meant to show off. “It’s my favorite type of forgery.”

“Don’t feel bad. Almost no one can tell they’re dreaming right away the first time.”

“The park,” Neal said, looking around. “It’s not quite right. I’ve been here—that pond is bigger in real life.”

Eames shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just good enough. Shall we take a walk?”

As they got up, Neal said, “But what good is creating an illusion like this if you’re not going to go for authenticity?”

“The challenge of dream architecture isn’t making things look real. It’s creating a setting that will fool your subject and protect you from their subconscious. That’s not as difficult as you might think. The mind is very easily influenced. You see what you want to see.”

Neal nodded slowly. “Right, like misdirection. You make the mark think they’re seeing something different than they actually are.”

“Exactly.”

Something occurred to Neal. “If you did get all the details right, could you tell you were dreaming?”

“You’d wake up eventually. The sedation doesn’t last forever.”

That didn’t do much to reassure Neal. But then, would it ever be possible to replicate enough detail that the dream was indistinguishable from reality? Neal could tell a forged painting from a real one in moments. Was this any different?

“So what?" Neal asked. "You put the mark under and probe their mind for whatever information you want?"

"To put it simply."

"Seems like a lot of work to get a safe code. Especially when you can just crack the safe."

"Who said anything about using extraction as a means to an end? Information can be just as valuable on its own."

"Right, like corporate espionage, that sort of thing."

Looking around him, he couldn't deny the magnificence of the PASIV technology, or Eames' skill. Yet, part of him wanted to deny it. He was used to working with tangible things: priceless paintings, gemstones, rare manuscripts. This was all eerily intangible, and there was something alarming about being faced with a form of forgery that was new to him.

He seemed to wake very suddenly. One moment, he was in New York. The next, he was lying on Eames' sofa.

"If you want my opinion," Eames said as he helped Neal detach the IV line, "you should get yourself a PASIV and start practicing. Plenty of demand for extractors."

"Thanks," Neal said, wincing as the needle was pulled out of his skin. "But I don't think corporate espionage is for me."

"Fair enough," Eames said with a small shrug. "But mark my words, this is the wave of the future."

He felt a little queasy. A normal side-effect for a first time Somnacin user, Eames assured him. Once he felt better, Neal bid farewell and returned to his hotel.

In the days that followed, he wondered if Eames might be right. What if the future of being a con man was in constructing dreams and infiltrating the mark's mind? It almost seemed like a form of cheating to be able to literally go inside someone's head.

He and Kate left to go back to New York a couple days later, and though he saw Eames once more before they parted ways, Neal was careful not to insinuate any interest.

But it was hard not to think about it, and for months after his return to New York, he found himself more conscious of the details in the world around him, prepared to see anything that was amiss.


End file.
